Global Warming
Hurricane Studies

One of the favorites with the “gw” crowd is the position that climate change is creating more numerous and intense hurricanes. Those who have the apocalyptic view of gw are persistent with their arguments that the catastrophe that is gw is played out on the tropical cyclone front. It is kind of a taste of what’s to come. Well, two recent studies seem to take the wind out of their sails [Sorry for the bad pun!].

The first report is in Geophysical Research Letters. The study was conducted by three scientists in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Creighton University. Their work was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They studied tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific near the Mexican coast. Their finding was that tropical cyclone activity is statistically decreasing. And, as to an increase of intensity, there is no upward tendency there either.

The Journal of Climate published a second study conducted by Francis Parisi of Standard and Poor’s and Robert Lund of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Clemson. They looked at hurricane strike data from 1900 to 2006 and found that despite the active seasons of 2004 and 2005, there is no increasing trend in hurricane strike frequencies over the period of time studied. The report specifically states: The hypothesis that hurricane strike frequencies are increasing in time is also statistically rejected.

I wonder if we will hear Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel report on these findings? Oh, I know, neither study was specifically of the Atlantic Basin. But, at least the studies look at actual date and make scientific and mathematical conclusions. Could they be wrong? Yeah. But, how about Al Gore, could he be wrong? And, does this prove there is no man made global warming? No. But, at least it makes one pause when looking at the poster promoting Gore’s movie…a hurricane pattern from a smokestack emission!
Connections between gw and hurricanes must be shown by data not imagination and media hype. One prediction is certain, these two reports will not slacken the drum beat for drastic action to avert the catastrophe that is awaiting us all from gw!